Suddenly, a team that was the worst defensively in the NBA last season believes it can become a good defensive squad.

"He's brought confidence to all of us, and the belief we can turn this thing around," Cousins said. "When it's negative from every angle, including the people that lead you into battle are negative, it's hard. That right there changed a lot of things. He understands us, he relates to us. Everything's been good since he got here."

Smart spent hours going over every Kings game from last season. He also studied other teams across different eras looking for ways he could improve his squad.

"I knew the team had certain flaws," Smart said. "Certain players that we had needed to get better at doing certain things. I knew the No. 1 thing was this team had to get in better shape. And I knew if they followed that, other things would fall into place."

Much improved yes good probably not but there is potenital for sure and heres why,

The PG's: Both Brooks and Thomas are speed demons who could take turns full court pressuring and going all out on D, they both can be posted up but there is few PG's who are good post up players, they can provide insane energy and pressure and cause havoc for guards bringing the ball up or big men who put the ball on the floor

The SG's: Tyrke, Thorton, Garcia: non of these guys are really anything above average defenders, Tyreke if he applied himself could certainly be a good one conisidering his strength, Thorton has good explosion but i have never really rated his D and while Garcia is smart he just don't have the athletic ability to go with the gun's playing @SG

The SF's: James Johnson and rookie T-Robinson: both athetlic beasts, both tough and can defend from SG-PF (depending on who), Johnson is known as a good defender and Coach Smart has said TROB could be a gun, so i think at SF they are very strong defensivly

The Big's: Cousins lead the league in charges and had good steal and ok block numbers and cause a load of turnovers from other teams, the lost weight in the summer should help if he avoids silly fouls, Chuck Hayes is a defensive monster 6'5 put it don't matter hes just a gun on D. Jason Thompson long range atheltic but needs to get meaner and tougher on D.

I think they can make big improvements on the defensive end but it might take more than one year for them to be a good team although if they work hard the potential is there